Advice on who to champ next: Coulson, Luke Cage, or Riri?

mega ghost

JarvisJackrabbit said:

mega ghost said:

I was planning on champing Riri, but now that her updated numbers are released I'm a bit less excited for her.

I'm still stuck on this. What part(s) of the ri-ri-re-work have made you less excited about her? I champed her awhile ago and am definitely excited about her changes, particularly to her blue, which seems like a great implementation of community feedback. Just curious.

All of the revised powers sounded great, as did the boost in health, but the numbers were lackluster, I thought.

Magnetic Repulsors: At 5 covers at lvl 270, this only does 2,543 damage. It used to do no damage, but it attracted 10 enemy attack, protect, and strike tiles to the center of the board, locking them. It now only attracts 4 tiles, including basic tiles (so you may not get any enemy specials at all.) It does make them charged red tiles, which is way better than just locking them, but at four tiles no matches will be made, so you won't even get any red AP unless you're lucky and there's a red tile nearby.

Remote Control Gauntlets: This is arguably worse. At 5 covers at lvl 270, it does either 5,178 damage to two enemies in the back, or 10,357 damage to one enemy if it's the last one left, for 11 AP. Previously, at the same levels and cost, it did 10,520 to the target and placed a 2-turn countdown tile that unlocks and removes four enemy special tiles (attack, strike, or protect.)

Selfless Intervention: At 5 covers at lvl 270, it previously dealt 5,029 damage, send Riri Airborne for 1 turn and the enemy for 2 turns. Now it only does 4,077 damage in exchange for sending the enemy airborne one additional turn, and only sends Riri airborne if there are 4 or more enemy special tiles in play. Since most of her kit was about removing enemies and their special tiles from play, you'd imagine you'll be using her often in cases where said special tiles are abundant, so she'll still be going airborne for that one turn more often than not.


So yeah, with her AP costs staying the same, and her damage mostly decreasing, in the end her numbers disappointed me.

mega ghost

veny said:

My honest advice? Save LTs, save CPs then promote both Riri and Coulson. After doing so, open stockpiled LTs and CPs. Right now it is pretty easy to get ISO for promoting 4*s (my rate is approx one 4* champed per 1 month).
Riri will stay for 4 months and Coulson for 6 months (or maybe slightly less) so i believe you can get some cool stuff from promoting them both (when they got vaulted, you will be getting them much less often, but in long run, i think it is a good investment)

This is good advice but I'm one of those jerks that uses my LTs and CP as soon as I can, I'm terrible at hoarding. This season was bad especially because I was hoping to get Blade covers before he left packs (I got one.)

Landale said:

I personally prefer to promote vaulted characters first as the opportunity arises, since their covers are harder to come by, making them a scarcer resource.  Remember too that the first champion level at 271 is a Legendary token, so you get something good right from the get.  

However, it also depends on the vaulted character.  I like Luke Cage quite a bit - he saves a significant number of health packs for me against a team with even 1 goon, and his Yellow can pack quite the punch (har har).  I would probably choose Coulson over, say, Winter Soldier, but probably not over Luke Cage because he's vaulted.

Ruinate said:

Coulson depends on your playstyle.  If you enjoy pvp then yes.  You have Carol which is reason enough to champ Coulson.  The thing about him though is that he doesn't really need levels.  His full passives are available at 4 covers and aren't reliant on levels.  You don't need levels to steal/generate ap or move tiles around.  His CD damage does benefit from levels but I believe their values were set with strike tiles in mind.  All his partners are strong and can make strike tiles.  So if his partners are champed, he doesn't need to be.  He has a good build at 4/5/4 and doesn't need to be changed a whole lot.  If you are pve only, he can wait.

Ooo, these are both really good points too, Landale and Ruinate.

I will undoubtedly get more Coulson covers in coming months... and I do like Luke Cage quite a bit, just as a character (I used his 3* version all of the time when I was in 3* land) ... I'm gonna sleep on it, but now I'm leaning towards Cage.

byc

The reworked Riri is solid/good.

It's a hard call between Riri or Power Man.

If you have C4rol and 5* Hawkeye (all 3 powers), then Coulson is the best choice since his winfinite team is pretty good.  I find I don't use Coulson that much with any other setup, even Medusa.

Jarvind

If you don't play PVP, Cage. He's godmode against goons.

Otherwise, Coulson. Amazing support and he pairs well with basically anyone that has cheap powers or makes countdowns. His AP generation makes him very usable even unboosted as well.

mega ghost

I ended up going with Coulson! This was in part because I pulled a second Coulson cover, in part because they ended vaulting and 4* Cage was no longer a rarity, and because I know I'll have plenty more Riri covers in the coming months. Her blue plays better than I predicted, but I still don't see her being as excellent as everyone thinks once she's no longer boosted.

But the main reason I went with Coulson was:

byc said:

If you have C4rol and 5* Hawkeye (all 3 powers), then Coulson is the best choice since his winfinite team is pretty good.  I find I don't use Coulson that much with any other setup, even Medusa.

I actually do have a 1/1/1 5* Hawkeye! I never use my 5* characters, and I haven't had a winfinite combo in some time. This team has been a blast!

Jaedenkaal

mega ghost said:

Magnetic Repulsors: At 5 covers at lvl 270, this only does 2,543 damage. It used to do no damage, but it attracted 10 enemy attack, protect, and strike tiles to the center of the board, locking them. It now only attracts 4 tiles, including basic tiles (so you may not get any enemy specials at all.) It does make them charged red tiles, which is way better than just locking them, but at four tiles no matches will be made, so you won't even get any red AP unless you're lucky and there's a red tile nearby.

This takes almost no luck, let me tell you. And it has amazing cascade potential even disregarding any red matches made in the center. This power functions MUCH better than it reads (and it reads pretty well)

mega ghost said:

Remote Control Gauntlets: This is arguably worse. At 5 covers at lvl 270, it does either 5,178 damage to two enemies in the back, or 10,357 damage to one enemy if it's the last one left, for 11 AP. Previously, at the same levels and cost, it did 10,520 to the target and placed a 2-turn countdown tile that unlocks and removes four enemy special tiles (attack, strike, or protect.)

The damage is essentially the same vs one target, same vs three targets (but split, and avoids many damage interception moves from characters like Thing, Spider-Woman, etc...), and half vs two targets. The versatility probably makes this overall a wash... except Magnetic Repulsors now generates Red AP like a beast.

mega ghost said:

Selfless Intervention: At 5 covers at lvl 270, it previously dealt 5,029 damage, send Riri Airborne for 1 turn and the enemy for 2 turns. Now it only does 4,077 damage in exchange for sending the enemy airborne one additional turn, and only sends Riri airborne if there are 4 or more enemy special tiles in play. Since most of her kit was about removing enemies and their special tiles from play, you'd imagine you'll be using her often in cases where said special tiles are abundant, so she'll still be going airborne for that one turn more often than not.

Why would you use her as a counter to special tiles when her new abilities do not counter special tiles? This is now (mostly) a 3-turn stun, plus nominal damage, plus occasionally also sending Riri airborne (depending on matchup). The damage and duration compare pretty favourably to other 4* options such as Wasp Sting, Venom Blast, It's Clobberin' Time, and I think even Power Surge.

I've been using her in the simulator this season, and she is still a beating.

heybub

Coulson...

mega ghost

Jaedenkaal said:

mega ghost said:

Magnetic Repulsors: At 5 covers at lvl 270, this only does 2,543 damage. It used to do no damage, but it attracted 10 enemy attack, protect, and strike tiles to the center of the board, locking them. It now only attracts 4 tiles, including basic tiles (so you may not get any enemy specials at all.) It does make them charged red tiles, which is way better than just locking them, but at four tiles no matches will be made, so you won't even get any red AP unless you're lucky and there's a red tile nearby.

This takes almost no luck, let me tell you. And it has amazing cascade potential even disregarding any red matches made in the center. This power functions MUCH better than it reads (and it reads pretty well)

I've rescinded that remark now that I've been able to play with her a bit, the power does indeed function more reliably than you'd expect. If no charged red matches occur, you can very frequently still make the match yourself.

mega ghost said:

Remote Control Gauntlets: This is arguably worse. At 5 covers at lvl 270, it does either 5,178 damage to two enemies in the back, or 10,357 damage to one enemy if it's the last one left, for 11 AP. Previously, at the same levels and cost, it did 10,520 to the target and placed a 2-turn countdown tile that unlocks and removes four enemy special tiles (attack, strike, or protect.)

The damage is essentially the same vs one target, same vs three targets (but split, and avoids many damage interception moves from characters like Thing, Spider-Woman, etc...), and half vs two targets. The versatility probably makes this overall a wash... except Magnetic Repulsors now generates Red AP like a beast.

I didn't realize this avoided damage interception moves. Is that intentional? Or is it something they will fix in a coming update? If it's intentional, that's a useful feature I'll take in place of the lost enemy tile removal. Sadly, this also makes Thing that much more useless in the current meta.

mega ghost said:

Selfless Intervention: At 5 covers at lvl 270, it previously dealt 5,029 damage, send Riri Airborne for 1 turn and the enemy for 2 turns. Now it only does 4,077 damage in exchange for sending the enemy airborne one additional turn, and only sends Riri airborne if there are 4 or more enemy special tiles in play. Since most of her kit was about removing enemies and their special tiles from play, you'd imagine you'll be using her often in cases where said special tiles are abundant, so she'll still be going airborne for that one turn more often than not.

Why would you use her as a counter to special tiles when her new abilities do not counter special tiles? This is now (mostly) a 3-turn stun, plus nominal damage, plus occasionally also sending Riri airborne (depending on matchup). The damage and duration compare pretty favourably to other 4* options such as Wasp Sting, Venom Blast, It's Clobberin' Time, and I think even Power Surge.

I've been using her in the simulator this season, and she is still a beating.

I don't know! I think I was just a little bitter about her special tile removal abilities being almost entirely stripped away and I hadn't yet accepted that she was no longer that character.

I've actually been having a lot of fun with 4* Carol, Coulson, and my 1/1/1 5* Hawkeye in Simulator. They've been cutting through most teams like a hot knife through butter. The only drawback is that I've not put a single ISO into Hawkeye (I haven't leveled any of my 5* characters and don't plan to until my 4* tier is essentially complete), so he requires health packs more frequently than the rest.